Do You Have To Be Legal To Donate?

The thread about Free Cakes For Kids got me thinking. I am planning on building my cake skills by decorating my way through an entire cake book. It's going to be a massive amount of cake that I'm going to have a hard time getting rid of. There is a woman and youth shelter in town I really want to donate the cake to. Am I able to do that even though its not from a legal kitchen?

The police might not eat donated cakes...just because everyone doesn't love cops the way they do firemen. So if you do donate one to them, I wouldn't just show up at the substation with it, give it to your friend to give to her dad to take to work.

Since I'm wary of scammers I usually only bake for organisations. I have been donating cupcakes every month to a daycare center at a soup kitchen in Pontiac for about 6 months now. I also made 2 really nice cakes for another womens' shelter but they never thanked me and I haven't heard from them since.

I did get an email this week from a woman asking for a cake for her 5 year old daughter. She included photos of elaborate two tier fondant covered Strawberry Shortcake cakes and said it would need to feed at least 30 people!!

I told her I was booked but I emailed another volunteer baker and she had offered her an 8 inch round or 12 cupcakes and hadn't heard from her since!!

When I called her out on it I received a snotty email back telling me I need to open my eyes and realise there are people who do not want, but NEED a cake to make her daughter and her friends happy!!!

I started doing it to help kids and improve my skills but there are too many scammers out there so I might give it up soon.